Taste Test: Burger King's New Doritos Loaded

Admit it: at some point in your life, you've melted cheese on Doritos in the microwave and called them "nachos." And they were soggy, but not terrible. Then came 7-Eleven's Doritos Loaded, the cheesy snack that simultaneously cut out the legwork (handwork?), fried everything, and delivered that delicious badness straight to your organs.

Well, those bite-sized organ-busters have branched out, and are now available for the first time at Burger King.

A tipster alerted The Impulsive Buy that the previously 7-Eleven-exclusive item was for sale at a Burger King in Queens. Thrillist contacted a number of BKs throughout the borough to confirm its presence, then found out it was also available in Manhattan.

Obviously, we went out and bought a bunch and tried them.

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Tasting notes

These things have a smell radius of about 5 feet, so you know they're headed your way. They come in a triangular prism box, four poppers per. They're darker in color and denser than anticipated. I imagined an orange-ish color, but really, they're more the hue of cooked chicken patties. And they're not as gooey/crumbly as I'd expected of a product made of cheese stuffs and crushed up Doritos. But perhaps that's a matter of how long they're cooked -- I'd say these ones were medium, where rare is an icy nacho brick, and well-done is a smoldering Dorito-cheese grenade.

And about that density: I bit in to find a yellow-ish cheese inner. There's no Doritos crunch to speak of. Really, it's more akin to a mozzarella stick coated in Doritos dust. It tastes like your standard American cheese single, but perhaps skewing toward the Cheddar side. From there, you really get a flavor that resembles the patties on the spicy chicken sandwich my high school (shoutout, Mentor High Cardinal Café!) served in its cafeteria. Which is to say: it's full of spices resembling Doritos, quite salty, and in all likelihood, containing a product within that only partially resembles its claimed source. In this case, that's cheese. In high school, it was chicken meat.

As one Thrillist staffer said, "The outside is pretty good, but the inside is the worst thing to ever happen to me." Which, is what we call hyperbole in the wordsmith biz, but reflects the fact these snacks would have benefited from further cooking. Nothing a microwave couldn't solve, of course.

You can down each popper in probably three bites; two if you're hangry; one if you're disgusting.

Verdict

Personally, I wouldn't order Doritos Loaded. But I'm not you, and they taste alright for a snack food with a plural name that's probably terrible for you. Let's be real. You're not going to BK and ordering a side dish made of cheese and Doritos because you're concerned with your figure. You just want something greasy, cheesy, and Dorito-y. And on that front, Doritos Loaded delivers. I still can't get over the name -- it's like the Orlando Magic of fast food side orders. But at least they're not the Charlotte Hornets.

Is it worth it? For $3 and some change (depending on where you live), you can do better on the BK menu. But if you're set on injecting Doritos dust into your diet, well, then this is the snack for you.